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So last week 10 Wombourne kayakers managed to paddle the Afon Gam for the first time. On Thursday Tim, Barry, Nigel and John were first to try it.
The Banwy gauge at Llanerfyll was reading 1.54 that morning. By all accounts it was a good paddle but would have benefited by another couple of inches of water as it was scrapey in one or two places.
On Saturday, 8 of us including Barry and Nige
armed with a little knowledge ran it again.
The gauge in the morning was reading 1.82 at 0630 hours and we decide we wouldn’t run it if it was too high ( a previous visit was called off when the Banwy was over 2 metres and the Gam was racing through and in the trees).
When we arrived at Dobbies Rob checked the EA gauge again and at 0940 hours it was on 1.67.
We arrived at the bridge at Llanerfyll (the take out ) and the EA gauge can be seen just upstream through the third arch of the bridge (still showing just under 1.7 ) On the drive up to the “get in” we checked the level at the little stone bridge and Barry and Nige pointed to a rock that was exposed on Thursday but on Saturday was just covered, so 3-4 inches more water !
The guide book describes it as a grade 2 paddle with a bit of grade 3. I think everyone really had a good paddle and it is probably a continuous and interesting grade 2 to 2+ paddle all the way, although personally to get it up to grade 3 the Llanerfyll gauge would probably need to be around 1.75 – 1.85 and perhaps we could try it again at that level. One thing to note is that the water level drops quickly on the Gam so when we got off 3 hours later the gauge was around 1.5.
One final point, although the river is tree lined we had no major hazards and the tree that caused the Thursday group a portage had very kindly moved, so no portages were necessary although we did cut a few branches off a fallen tree to make life easier for the next time.
If I’ve missed anything please add more info for future reference !!
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